3 October: Can’t say why but I developed a beginning affection toward Helsinki. The area of the city where my hotel was and where I did my walking, which is said to be city center, is typical big city in many ways but car traffic isn’t so bad, trolleys seem everywhere (who cannot like trolleys?), there’re many sidewalk cafes, most buildings are old and venerable…that doesn’t seem like much but I still felt more positive about it than I did Oslo or Reykjavik. More trees, I think, for one thing. Locals describe Helsinki as small, and objectively I’m sure it is relative to many major cities (except compared to Reykjavik, whose central area I didn’t try to locate), but it’s still busy, has plenty of pedestrians, and definitely has the air of big city about it. For whatever reasons, I liked it; wouldn’t want to live there but nice place to visit. It probably also helped that I got out of town yesterday to hike and canoe in beautiful country.
Photo by Tapio Haaja on Unsplash
